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In essence Remote Application Delivery is remote control. Imagine for a moment that you were piloting a remote controlled car. The car has a small video camera looking out through its windscreen connected to a small video screen on the remote controller you were operating. Well this can be done with software too. The display you are looking at comes from the remote computer, and the mouse and keyboard signals get transmitted to the remote session. Also any audio signals or printing gets sent back to you from the remote computer. You can attach USB devices as well and these get connected back to the remote computer.

Now comes the amazing bit. The remote computer does not exist as a lump of metal and silicon, it is a virtual machine. This virtual computer exists inside the operating memory of a larger computer called a server. What’s more that server can host many separate virtual machines, each one behaves as if it were real and all of its data and settings are secure from each other and are saved between sessions.

All that is needed is a dumb terminal (usually the size of a double thickness paperback book), a display, a keyboard and a mouse. Oh and an Internet connection of course.

What’s more you can create virtual networks of PCs.

So why would people use this technology. There are a number of reasons but the most common ones are:-

The security and maintenance of the servers can be undertaken at a central location by specialist staff.

They have very slow internet connections (all of the internet activity is taking place on the remote computer, the operator is just seeing the “picture” of what is going on)

Security, if the house or office is burgled or there’s a fire all that is lost is the hardware and that is relatively low cost.

Temporary arrangements where computing is needed but there is no desire to invest heavily in hardware.

Lastly we should add that this sort of remote delivery can just be for specific applications. Let’s say you require occasional access to sophisticated desktop publishing but do not want to invest in expensive licences and high end software for the few times it is needed. Remote technology can do this and deliver the application directly to your own computer.